Motivation for Learning

Motivation for Learning is a book for teachers-but not only for teachers: parents and administrators will also find it of value. Ultimately, too, it is a book for students-for their independence and growth and against their boredom in the classroom. Stanford C. Ericksen writes out of years of experience, both as a teacher and as director of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan. In a practical fashion, he brings together the significant applications from research and theory about learning, motivation, personality, and group dynamics. The book says more about the conditions for learning than about the techniques of teaching: projecting one's voice to the back of the room is judged to be less important than is the instructor's ability to make sense to young adults and to challenge their curiosity. Throughout, the primary focus is on the stimulation and encouragement of the individual student's motivation to acquire new knowledge and new attitudes and values. Only a person of Ericksen's special experience could have written such a book. Equally important, only a person who likes and respects students as much as he does could have given the book its special quality of human warmth and understanding.